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I have a very nice condition temperature gauge that someone had found for my ’35 before I bought it 1991. The ’35 has the fluid column. I pulled it out of the box and two issues:
1) the fluid is not red, I assume like the King-Seeley gas gauge the fluid loses color over time? Maybe it is the same fluid.
2) It reads hot at room temperature. I assume it has a bubble in the ether capillary from being on its side. I currently have the bulb in ice water hoping to pull the ether down and figure it is safer than heating it up. So far it has only dropped a little bit.
Does anyone have experience with this? I am thinking the next step is to put it in hot water to heat it up but I don’t know how its internals are set up, might it screw up the two fluids if it blows some liquid ether up into the gauge?
If it works I will probably live with not having red fluid. If it doesn’t, who does one go to for repair? I don’t see anyone specifically for temp gauge in the directory. I googled the “The Temperature Gauge Guy” and found he passed away several years ago and his apprentice took over the business but don’t find a current listing.
Thanks for any help, and happy 4th of July!
Jim
I have a 35 with the same problem, red has faded to clear. I know there is “the temperature gauge guy” who repairs them, I just wasn’t willing to pull out the unit of the car yet. Let me know how you make out.
Check the Parts & Services Directory under Dash Instruments for Abbott Instruments. He does excellent work both in mechanical repair and restoration of gauge faces.
I talked to Abbott today and he said current lead time on a set of gauges was a year. Plan appropriately.
Thanks all! I have hopes of getting it working without taking it apart. Would be a shame to take such a nice original gauge apart if not necessary. I was able to get some the column down halfway to the right spot with a few cycles of putting it in ice and tilting it over horizontal and upside down interspersed with putting it in boiling water.
A foolish thing to do since I haven’t been able to locate a simple cross-section to understand how the ether from the bulb interfaces with the red liquid column. In the process of doing this some of the column fluid has done a little mixing and now it has some color to it – not bright red but at least some color.
It seems crazy I haven’t been able to locate such basic info as a generic cross-section of one of these things, but obviously haven’t looked in the right place.
Looks like I will be messing with the King-Seeley gas gauge in the next couple weeks, experimenting to see if I can get it working and adequately sealed with new lines/fluid and the cleaning I already did on the sender. It isn’t critical path right now except I am working out where to put auxiliary fuel pump and lines, parallel vs series. I probably will run a new separate line up the left side of the frame.
Thanks again! Jim